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What happened when Ellen Daly Sold Over 2000 workshops in less than 4 Months Using Instagram

Nov 10, 2022

In 2021, Australia-based Ellen Daly wanted to create designs for her baby's nursery.

When she came across textured art on the web She quickly fell in admiration of the medium. When she first discovered it her son was almost two years old and she was expecting the second of her children. Evenings, when her son was sleeping -- she'd create art that was textured. This let her take some time to herself and cultivate her creativity.

In January 2022, she started an account on Instagram called Sundown Lines to share her art pieces. This account quickly increased to over 5,000 followers. Then, she started selling her pieces that are inspired by nature -- to collectors from all over the world. "Art began as a hobby that I began to do for a bit of'me time', and suddenly I was booked out with the demand," says Daly.

Even though Daly had little prior artistic experience, she believes herself an artist. she worked as an elementary school teacher, and was always a fan of drawing as a child. While her kids were young Daly didn't wish to go back to work. She could only produce and then sell her artwork to cover the cost of living. In the summer of 2022, she decided to grow her art-related business by offering online training courses.

She now sells two courses: her initial course, called the Textured Art Workshop, teaches artists how to create art, and her other course, called the Business Growth Workshop, teaches people how to grow their business in the field of art. Since launching her first course, she's grown her Instagram account to over 109,000 followers and sold just under 2 000 classes, generating approximately $72,000 USD. "It's been a bit of a whirlwind and it's been incredible," she says.

In this article, Daly shares her top secrets for growing her business less than four months

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She makes use of Instagram reels for sharing her artistic process

After launching her initial course, Daly's objective was to sell four workshops every week. She chose over other e-learning platforms because she believed it was affordable and user-friendly.

"I didn't know how big it could get. Within the first month, we sold about 400 units, and that's around $18,000 USD. This was more than I ever could had imagined. ."

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    A blog post that is shared with Sundown Lines (@sundown_lines)

The key to selling online courses is Instagram. In order to increase her followers, she consistently posts material -- particularly Instagram reels that give value to the fans. "Since publishing more of my process of creating art and the online workshops, my audience has grown tremendously," continues Daly

The reels she uses predominantly showcase her intricate art process up-close with witty lyrics and music as background- intrigue people according to Daly. These reels encourage her followers to buy her artwork or make work of their own with the online classes she offers. "A lot of people become interested in my art after watching my process," she explains. "They want to know what medium I work with and what steps I use in creating my art ."

She has two lead magnets

Daly produces leads two ways: through Instagram content and Facebook ads.

On Instagram, she adds hyperlinks to her workshops in her Instagram bio and through her stories. "The majority of leads come through Instagram," she says. "Instagram is my main business ."

She also has an Facebook ad that acts as a lead-generator. It's been proven extremely lucrative and brings people directly to her website. "The advertisement on Facebook has a video with little fragments from the Textured Art Workshop," Daly says. Daly.

She sells her courses before she designs them.

Prior to creating content for both of her courses, she had them pre-launched to make sure that the readers were intrigued by what she was creating.

The first of her courses her first course, the Textured Art Workshop, was available for sale on July 4 before being officially launched on July 12. Her second course, the Business Growth Workshop, was pre-sold on August 22 and launched officially on September 16. It's a shame that she didn't she had some time to develop content between her pre-sale launch and official launch dates. "I had a very close deadline to create all of the material for both workshop, but the way I saw it, this was a good thing because it put pressure on me to get these tasks completed," she says.

Furthermore, the fact that she made her courses available via pre-order helped ensure that she had the opportunity to build hype before she created her courses. She even offered a pre-launch discount that incentivized the people who followed her to buy the course.

"Even although I'd thought of the exercises it was helpful to give me some input about what I should incorporate into the workshops Based on the questions participants were asking along the way."

She prioritizes accessible pricing

Daly is a firm believer in pricing that is affordable.

For her to arrive at the correct price, she says that it was a process of trial and error; at first, her workshops were costing more than they are now. But, as her website is connected to Shopify, she could see that the higher price led to more carts being abandoned at the checkout. "When I reduced the price by a bit, and then priced the price at a level which was more accessible to people, sales increased," she says.

Since many of Daly's followers are only beginning their own creative adventures Daly found it was better to sell more workshops for a cheaper price than less at a higher price. "I would like the classes to be affordable," she says. "Especially when students just need to make one piece of artwork for their own homes. ."

The instructor also permits students to mix the two workshops together. At present, the Business Growth Workshop is already reduced. Then, she'll introduce an offer for bundles that is discounted to encourage people to buy both of the courses simultaneously. "This is an excellent option to drive the number of sales,"" she says.

She recommends that others who create online courses play around with pricing to figure out what fits their customer base the most. She also advises users to not give up and to be prepared for the ups and downs of the sales of online courses. "Some times, I'll get up only to discover that nobody has purchased my workshop, but the next day, I'll experience one of my highest sales days yet," she explains. "It's all both up and down. You have to just keep going as eventually you'll see the benefits ."

She is a host to an international crowd

A majority of the audience Daly serves is female. Despite living in Australia the majority are located within the US. "Most of my customers come from overseas," she says. "I believe I've sold a workshop across every continent. This was quite unexpected. ."

In order to accommodate her international audience to reach out to a wider audience, the Shopify integration helps to reflect the cost of the workshop in customer's currency. "Once we joined Shopify with Shopify, we could see the currencies show properly to them," she says.

Additionally, she provides subtitles in multiple languages for non-English speakers. This makes her classes even more accessible to those living around the world.

She simplifies her production of content

To create the online workshop's curriculum Daly began by laying out every chapter. "I recorded the things I wanted to cover in each chapter," she explains. "Then I went on to the filming ."

The videos were recorded by her videos with her iPhone at home. Then, after filming the videos, she created an easy-to-print guide to help to communicate key details to students. "I took bits of each video, and then put it into my printable guides," she says.

The husband of her, who is in IT has been her "technical helper,' and assisted in filming, editing video, and uploading everything onto the website. Now, he works at full-time for her business.

She makes use of feedback from students

Facebook assists her in scaling her business for a number of reasons.

Her main Sundown Lines Facebook group, which anyone can join and has nearly 1,000 members. Additionally, she has two private Facebook groups: one dedicated to the Textured Art Workshop and one to promote the Business Growth Workshop.

Comments in the Textured Art Workshop group helped her gauge interest in what they would like for her next project. As an example, the feedback received from the Facebook group is what led her to design her Business Growth Workshop. "A majority of the people asking how I grew my business that is thriving in textured arts," she says. "That was a great source of feedback I used to create my next workshop."

In the future she's planning to launch additional courses based on her students' comments. "I've had a lot of people in my Facebook group request different styles of textured art," she says. "I'm simply using their feedback to guide me on what to create next ."

She also has two private Facebook groups. One is dedicated to the Textured Art Workshop and one specifically for her Business Growth Workshop. These groups as well as email -are the way she communicates with her students. Through the feedback she receives in these Facebook groups they allow her to include extra information to her workshops.

"If there's a concern that comes up frequently in groups on Facebook, then I return and make additional modules, and send out emails to help address those questions as well as assist users."

She is able to work around the schedule of her family

Based on Daly her aim is to be visible on Instagram as well as in her Facebook groups so that her classes continue to be popular.

At present, she's very satisfied with the way she's transformed her passion for a hobby into her and her husband's full-time job. "It's something I've didn't think would ever happen," she says. "My husband and I went from working full-time and stressful work schedules to being able to work around our family and make more money in a ."

"We went on holiday this week, and made the same amount of money you could have earned by working at the house," she continues. "To accomplish that was amazing ."

If you're looking to transform your hobby into a lucrative business make your own web-based course. Sign up for today.